Iris~~
The next morning before breakfast I knock on Erik's door. I haven't heard anything about Y or Eun-seob. I think I got a few minutes of sleep. It's hard to be sure when my dreams consisted of waking up in my bed, only to actually wake up a few minutes later in the same place.
Erik opens the door. What are supposed to be the whites of his eyes are red.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing." He closes the door behind him and pauses to run his hand through his hair. "You ready for hell?"
"Not really."
That response works for Erik as a yes because he takes off down the hall.
"Have you heard anything about the rebels?" I ask when I reach his side.
"No. Colton doesn't tell me a damn thing. I'm sure all eleven of them have a group text going, and they're excluding me from it."
I tilt my head. "Do you want to be a part of it?"
"No. But it'd be nice if they'd add me just so I can remove myself from it."
When we reach the dining room, no one is clustered around the doors. I mean, no one. The doors are even shut.
"Where is everyone?"
He doesn't answer. Instead he flings the doors open.
The most horrifying sight lies on the other side of them.
Clowns. So many of them. They're scattered throughout the red, blue, and yellow decorations. Society members are already seated and staring at us.
Erik lets the doors swing shut, separating us from that nightmare. They're already seated . . . We're not late. It's not even 8:20. The decorations. The clowns. Oh—my stomach churns and I curse. Clowns.
"Erik, what is that?" I motion to the doors.
"My birthday party."
"Your—your birthday?"
"Twenty years to the date."
"You never said—"
He leans against a square column, wiping his sleeve across his forehead. "I don't like people making a big deal out of it."
I never liked mine. They meant I was one year closer to dying. I would always cry the night before them. "Why is that your birthday party?"
"It's a joke. Gwen likes to plan things, and she wants to get back at me for running off and doing that to her brother and the family."
"Clowns though?"
"She couldn't resist."
I lean against the same column and cross my arms, waiting for him to continue.
"I was seven. My father and I were walking in the town near our old Estate. He was taking me to lunch. I didn't ever get to spend much time with him, so it was a big deal for me." He scuffs the ground with his shoe. "The circus was in town. Performers were walking around, trying to get people to come to the show. A clown came up to us and squirted water in my face thinking I would laugh. Instead, I cried, and my father had him killed right there . . . in front of me."
My eyes widen and my heart lurches. "I—I don't know what to say."
He doesn't meet my eyes. "If I had just laughed . . . It's my fault. I can't see a clown without wanting to rip my hair out. That's the joke. I can't go to my own birthday party."
"If it wasn't you, someone else would have caused it. It was his Expiration Date." I can't help but think that maybe he didn't want Erik to laugh; that he wanted his chance to make the Society pay before died.
"If it wasn't for me, he would have lived. We cause Expiration Dates. Not we as in the Society but everyone. We all contribute to them." He drags his back down the wall to sit on the floor. "Just like you're not susceptible to death that whole day. Your whole life leads up to that one moment. That moment is a mosaic of decisions. My father made the decision to take me into town that day. I made the decision of what restaurant we were going to eat at, leading me to the sidewalk we were on. The man made a series of decisions to lead him to the circus. Someone made the decision to bring the circus to that town. But I made the decision to cry. Willingly or not, my body made that decision, so it's my fault."
"Erik, you can't live the rest of your life blaming yourself."
"I can, and I will. The end result of those decisions, my decisions, were known when I was born. That's fate, Iris."
I'm not sure what it means or says that we both have horrific clown stories. When I was fourteen, before Jae-yeon, a man visited my orphanage dressed as a clown—for charity, he said. He then tried kidnapping one of us, not expecting her to throw punches or to hold him off until Y and I rushed in and held him down. Was Y thinking of that time as his car crashed and I sped off with the Society?
"Erik?" A woman steps out of the dining room. She's older than us, maybe in her forties.
"Mother."
I let go of Erik's hand.
She bends down next to him, ignoring me. "Did you read the letter?"
"What do you think?"
She frowns, cupping his cheek in her hand. "Please come into breakfast. Gwen put a lot of effort into this." When Erik doesn't respond, she continues, "You can't let her get the upper hand on you. You, and only you, are the future Tresais." Tomorrow. Tomorrow he won't be the future Tresais. He will be the Tresais.
Erik's mother returns into the dining room, and Erik pulls himself to his feet.
"What letter?"
I think his eyes water again, but he blinks, and I'm no longer sure.
"Molly wrote me letters for every birthday I'll have. She only got seventeen birthdays. It's why I cover up my Mark. Why I never mentioned my birthday to you."
"You're . . ." I understand what he's saying perfectly, because I've had bitter thoughts against those who would have fifty, eighty, ninety birthdays while I would only have nineteen. "You're ashamed?"
He scratches his cheek, where his mother's hand rested. "You remind me so much of her, not just your eyes, but your laugh, the way you talk, the way you see things."
I'm the girl he was able to save from her Expiration Date, but not the one he wanted. My stomach churns. What if I really am a replacement for him like Colton said? What if I'm Molly 2.0 in his eyes? I remember his fixation on my eyes the day we met, how I jokingly wondered if he offered to stay with me so he could have my eyes when I died. "They're what made me turn back in time to help you." He couldn't save Molly from whatever fate beheld her, but he could save her eyes.